The present invention relates to a damping element for arrangement in a corrugated exterior hose. The invention also relates to a decoupling element for conduits, in particular exhaust gas conduits for motor vehicles, which includes a damping element of this type.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
Decoupling elements, which are arranged, for example, in motor vehicles between the motor and the downstream sections of the exhaust gas system, frequently include a coaxial arrangement formed of an interior hose and an exterior hose. It is known that noise resulting from contact between these hoses can be eliminated by arranging a hose or ring made of woven metal between the interior hose and the exterior hose.
In one prior art device for eliminating resonances, housings having additional masses are mounted radially on the outside circumference. In another prior art damping mechanism, an unwanted frequency is removed by superimposing an oscillation with an opposite phase from a Helmholtz resonator. Other conventional damping mechanisms employ springs or a woven metal hose or a woven metal ring which are frictionally coupled to the outside structure of the metal bellow.
These conventional systems suffer from material fatigue. It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved damping element to obviate prior art shortcomings and to increase the service life of metal hose assemblies, in particular metal hose assemblies used in decoupling elements for exhaust gas conduits of motor vehicles.